Plug and play networking equipment makes networking friendlier for consumers installing a Wi-Fi (e.g., under a IEEE 802.11 protocol as promulgated by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) system out of the box. Entities also desire less complex configurations when making changes to network equipment. Depending on a size of network coverage needed, range extenders are added at “dead areas” to provide extended Wi-Fi access. For example, a range extender can add coverage to a backyard of a home. Also, a range extender can connect two buildings of a corporation.
Conventional configuration techniques for range extenders are performed through a wired connection by a network administrator, over several steps. First, the network admin connects a wire to an access point to receive parameters. Next, the network admin connects a wire to a range extender to upload parameters. Even if the network admin wants to wirelessly connect to the access point and the range extender, the point-to-point nature of Wi-Fi radios prevents a dual connection. Further, interference between multiple Wi-Fi radios would be problematic.
More specifically, WDS is a technique for an access point acting as a master base station to connect with access points acting as slave base stations for extending Wi-Fi range. The master base station needs to receive MAC addresses of the slave base stations, and likewise, the slave base stations need to receive a MAC address of the base station. Other parameters in common include an SSID, a wireless channel, and an encryption mode. As described above, conventional techniques accomplish configurations with a series of wired connections.
What is needed is a robust technique for wireless configuration of wireless distribution system nodes, for example, using a wireless communication channel other than Wi-Fi for synching WDS configuration data necessary for extending Wi-Fi range.